A 15-year-old boy and a 20-year-old man were arrested and charged with terrorism-related offences today (Dec 10) in Sydney, and three other suspects are being questioned, police officials said at a news conference here.
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“It’s disturbing in that we are continuing to see teenage children in this environment”, stated Catherine Burn, NSW Police officers deputy commissioner for special operations.
The school boy faces a maximum of life in prison if he is convicted of the crime. “This is concerning, not only to us in law enforcement but this should be concerning to everybody”, Burns said.
The 15-year-old teenager, who was arrested along with a 22-year-old man in counter-terrorism raids in Sydney’s west on Thursday, was 14 when the alleged terror plot was devised last year, police allege.
The three other men who were being questioned this morning about this latest case were already in custody after being detained late past year in police raids.
Police say it is part of an investigation into possible plots on government buildings and random attacks on civilians.
“Last December there were a number of documents seized that related to the search warrants we undertook in western Sydney, and those documents… clearly talked about a plan, and there were government buildings named in those plans, specifically the [Australian Federal Police] building”, Deputy Commissioner Phelan said.
“It’s not a very comforting society if the price of our safety is to lock up kids that we don’t think we can protect from doing things by nearly punishing them for inconsiderable times”.
The teenager was also the subject of raids in 2013 and 2014, and his psychologist told the court he was suffering from anxiety and depression as a result of the police visits. One of them is just a 15-year-old teen boy and alarm is being expressed to the age at which he is radicalized.
A 15-year-old boy shot and killed accountant Curtis Cheng at police headquarters in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta in October and was then killed in a gunfight with police outside the building.
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“We absolutely deemed that they had the capability and the capacity and the intent to carry out an attack here in Australia”, he said. “It’s important that if people identify things that are different, things that are outside the norm to try and intervene as early as we can”.
